Difficulties with One's Guru
A nun came to see Rinpoche about a difficult time she was having in relation to her guru. She felt she was generating negative karma, not too negative, but still she wanted to discuss it. Her teacher had suddenly stopped teaching her, and her motive was to study. She was very eager to learn, and when that was not happening, it became a problem for her mind. Then her mind began having difficulties toward her teacher. Rinpoche’s response was as follows.
Your main goal in life is not just to study. Your main goal is to achieve enlightenment, to free all sentient beings from suffering and bring them to enlightenment. For that, you need realizations on the path to enlightenment. And for that, you need to purify your mind and collect merit. Therefore, study cannot be your only goal in life.
Everything depends on correctly devoting to the virtuous friend, so you might find a big difference once you change your motivation. The emphasis should be to do what most pleases the guru, and correctly devote yourself to the virtuous friend. Everything comes down to that, and that’s the essential practice. Study is not the main aim of life.
Afterward, Rinpoche commented that later it seemed the nun changed her idea about the goal of her life, and this opened a different view up for her. This made it easy, and released her from the difficult thoughts toward her guru and his not teaching her various subjects.